The focus at last week's Bretton Woods Committee 's Annual Meeting was on poverty reduction. IMF Director Christine Lagarde discussed her organization's role in the effort to fight poverty around the globe, and she outlined three areas key arguments that are central to the IMF efforts: 1) Economic stability is essential for poverty reduction. 2) Growth and equity are mutually reinforcing, and necessary for sustainability. 3) Fiscal policies can improve equity and lower poverty. Here is Lagarde's speech:

One of the great positive global economic stories of the young 21st century--perhaps the top story--is the rapidly rising middle class in developing nations across the globe, especially in South America and Asia. But Johannes Jütting ,Head of Poverty Reduction at the OECD Development Center in Paris, warns us not to overlook the challenges that a burgeoning new middle class bring to nations and the global economy. Writing at Project Syndicate , Jütting argues that the middle class's "dreams" can become "nightmares" if policymakers get complacent and overlook the structural challenges that they must face: In today’s shifting world, with GDP in roughly 80 developing economies rising at twice the rate of per capita growth in the OECD, the club of the world’s richest countries, middle-class citizens paradoxically complain and protest regardless of whether fortunes improve or decline. Moises Naim, a former Venezuelan minister of trade and industry, even warns of a possible “emerging global war of the middle-classes.” While anger over pay cuts and unemployment make sense, it is harder to understand the current protests in fast-growing countries like Thailand and Chile, where standards of living are improving. What is going on? High growth in Asian and southern countries has meant greater export earnings and rents from natural resources. Unfortunately, this blessing can turn into a curse. In China, former Communist leader Deng Xiaoping’s vision – “let some people get rich first” – has led to impressive economic growth and poverty reduction; but it has also undermined the self-proclaimed “harmonious society,” as recent protests and labor conflicts indicate. Indeed, it is telling that, in the spring of 2011, Beijing’s municipal authorities banned all outdoor luxury-goods advertisements on the grounds that they might contribute to a “politically unhealthy environment.” Rising inequality, lack of civic participation, political apathy, and a dearth of good jobs, particularly for the young, comprise the Achilles heel of emerging-market countries’ current development model. A Gallup poll on subjective well-being in Tunisia and Thailand shows that, while income levels and social conditions in both countries improved between 2006 and 2010, life satisfaction dropped. Read The Middle Class Goes Global here .